


hold on, though we may be too young to know this ride we're on

by copperiisulfate



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:30:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1988151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outside, there’s a lightning strike that flashes across his darkening room, and Izumo’s doing that thing again that they used to do when they were younger, counting seconds up until the thunder will follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold on, though we may be too young to know this ride we're on

  
It's been raining all week and Mikoto's down with a fever. He got caught in it on the way home from school yesterday, left the umbrella at home--not that he's ever really bothered with it, not since Izumo bought it for him some years ago.  Whenever Izumo would nag at him about it, he’d mutter about it not mattering and how, _besides_ , Izumo always had one. Yesterday didn’t go to plan though. He’d got stuck in detention and Izumo had to be somewhere after school.

Which brings them to today, where Izumo comes home to find him sweating all over his covers and pillows.

He’d apparently let himself in while Izumo was at school, spent the day wondering idly where he'd been, seeing as there was no sign of him on the rooftop or all the other nooks and crannies that he usually haunted. Of course, it would have been too easy if he’d just picked up his damn phone or answered texts but then, that was hardly unusual behaviour considering the party at hand.

Try as Izumo might, he refuses to go under the covers, keeps complaining that it's too hot, never mind that he's shivering. He's whined his way into getting Izumo to open the window wide. The wind has died down a bit now at least so the rain pours straight down and not into Izumo’s apartment.

Izumo sometimes thinks that the world at large would be kind of surprised to see how much Suoh Mikoto can actually whine. Although he figures, right now, it might have something to do with the fact that Izumo’s confiscated his cigarettes and refuses to give them back until he drinks at least some of the goddamn soup and maybe gets his temperature below a hundred. Neither of these things seems to be happening any time soon, so here they are, at an impasse.

Mikoto’s far from his fighting game today though so it’s not long until he’s out cold. Izumo’s kneeling by the corner of the mattress, chin on his folded arms by the window ledge, looking out at the rain, the city below, small, moving umbrellas and slow-moving traffic and the tops of buildings clouded by fog when he picks up on the soft snoring.

He pulls out one of Mikoto's cigarettes from the pack he’s held captive in his jeans’ left pocket, lights one up and blows the smoke outside, another cloud for the clouds. Even through the haze of it, he can smell the rain, and it’s not exactly clean—nothing about the air around here is clean, but it smells like early summer all the same.

He's more than halfway through his cigarette when he feels a tug at his leg, finds himself toppling over, gracelessly backwards onto his bed. His best friend is propped up on an elbow and glaring at him, looking so disproportionately betrayed that Izumo cannot help but laugh.

“You asshole,” Mikoto tries to growl but it comes out a croak. His voice is giving out and it is the opposite of intimidating--not that Izumo has ever been capable of finding Mikoto any more intimidating than an angry rain-drenched cat. It's almost kind of cute.  
  
“Go back to sleep,” Izumo says, still a little breathless, from the sudden fall, and from laughing, and tosses the leftover stub in the ashtray on his side table. “Trying to save your goddamn life here.”

Mikoto grumbles and swipes at the pack, which, Izumo realizes belatedly has just fallen out of his pocket. They both make a grab for it, fail, and it ends up landing on to the floor while Izumo ends up landing half-sprawled over Mikoto, who is still scowling at him but, up-close, it's possibly even more hilarious.

Except—then, Izumo’s closer, forehead to forehead, and he can feel him burning up.

“Should've kept that umbrella, huh?” It doesn't come out nearly as light as Izumo had wanted it to, doesn’t really come out as derisive as he might have wanted it to either.

 _Shouldn't have left you,_ he thinks privately. _This is what happens when I do._

“Go back to sleep,” Izumo repeats, softer now, fingers brushing his hair away from his forehead; the touch makes his lashes flutter, takes Izumo’s heart right with it.

He swallows hard and he’s about to pull himself away when Mikoto's hands settle on his back. It doesn’t last more than a few seconds because something shifts and Mikoto lets go.

He turns his face to the side, tries so fucking hard to look impassive but he's an idiot if he thinks he’ll succeed, not here, not now; Izumo's not new. "You'll get sick too," he says, voice rough, "and then we'll both be screwed."

Izumo has the audacity to smile at that, and yeah, maybe they’re both delirious, maybe he’s already caught it, because he also has the audacity to say with mock awe, "You? Worried about me!?" and kiss him on the forehead, a big, showy, noisy deal. Partly, it’s to get a rise out of him and partly because--he doesn't need reasons and it's become something of a _thing,_ like so many other things, that they do but don’t talk about, like Mikoto's fingers still hovering by his waist, at the hem of his shirt, like Izumo’s heart lurching at nothing more than the mere sight of him sometimes, and then amplified, magnified, in a bizarre and exponential way, by this whole proximity thing that makes them lose their heads a little. It will come back to bite them in some years, if not sooner, much, much sooner, and Izumo knows this as sure as the rain.

But then, they're young still. They can pull it off and get away with it and not get caught--or not just yet. Or at least that's what he tells himself. It's either that or—

Outside, there’s a lightning strike that flashes across his darkening room, and Izumo’s doing that thing again that they used to do when they were younger, counting seconds up until the thunder will follow. Mikoto would spot the lightning and Izumo would begin the count, upwards until the speed of sound caught up with the speed of light, the longer the count, the farther away it hit.

It’s raining harder now. He should probably get up soon, close the window before the water gets inside, but he’s got his head on the damp cotton of Mikoto's shirt, can hear his heart hammer, slowly picking up the pace. 

And there it is. _The thunderclap._

—Izumo laughs, quieter now, says, “We're probably already screwed.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by it raining nonstop around here and Ben Howard's _Promise_ and _Depth Over Distance_ , the latter of which the title is borrowed from. This could probably be read as either canon compliant high school flashback or an AU depending on whether you prefer to be miserable or happy :)


End file.
